The Rudd led government’s unwillingness or inability to make legislative changes that challenge the power of those sections of the community that influence individual behaviour is the Achilles heel of his attempts to solve community problems through legislative efforts that regulate individual behaviour. This legislative pattern is discernable in the efforts the government is taking in tackling the problems that the alcohol industry is causing in Australia. It’s also apparent in the legislative response that gives Australians the spurious choice of been able to change their banking lender when faced with a financial and banking sector that is determined to squeeze every last cent from lenders by levying a host of fees and charges that are hard to justify.

The Rudd led Labor government, like many of its post WWII predecessors, has abrogated its responsibility to the electorate by refusing to regulate the activities of that small section of the community that owns the means of production, distribution and exchange while showing no compunction in pursing legislative attempts that use the full power of the law to disempower the individual. It refuses to debate, let alone considering legislative responses, to break the power of unaccountable powerful corporations that through the economic monopoly they are able to exercise are having a powerful and detrimental effect on society, cultural norms and the individual.

Governments have both a duty and a responsibility to protect their citizens from both external and internal threats. Those that refuse to exercise the considerable powers they have, because they are frightened of the potential consequences of challenging the power of that small section of society that dominate economic activity in this country, fail both the individual and society as a whole.

Ask anybody and they’ll tell you things are much worse than they have ever been. We live in a culture that is dominated by fear; people lock themselves up, refusing to venture out, frightened they will be victims of crime. The culture of fear that blights many people’s lives has been reinforced by a perceived terrorist threat. Many Australians think that if the criminals won’t get them, the terrorists will. The culture of fear that exists in the community has been promoted by a media that exaggerates crime to win a never ending ratings war to maintain their advertising revenue. The media is aided and abetted by a police force that demands more police be employed to deal with a non existent crime wave and governments that promote a culture of fear to tighten their hold on the levers of power.

Everybody in positions of authority benefits from the manufactured culture of fear that pits neighbour against neighbour, the old against the young, blacks against whites, Asians against Europeans, migrants against locals, gays against straights and northern suburbs youth against eastern suburbs youth. It’s important we challenge this culture of fear. While people are fearful of each other, they’ll never see who the real thieves and criminals are.

A manufactured culture of fear ultimately benefits that small section of society that owns the means of production, distribution, exchange and communication. It reinforces the idea that citizens need the State to protect them from their fellow citizens. It reinforces the power of the media because it allows them to set the political agenda and exploit unjustifiable community fear to bolster their bottom line.

While that small section of society that exercises real political and economic power succeeds in dividing us on class, race, gender and sexual orientation lines, Australians will continue to think they are in the middle of a crime wave that can only be tackled if the power of the State, the government of the day, the police force and the armed forces is increased and the little power that citizens are able to exercise in this country today is severely restricted.

The images coming out of Tibet highlight the desperate actions of a people that want their country back. Faced with years of repression and the migration of hundreds of thousands of Chinese since Tibet was invaded by the Chinese government almost 50 years ago, many Tibetans have taken part in an uprising that has targeted police barracks and Chinese owned businesses.

I was intrigued to hear the justification of the local commander of the Peoples Armed police force Wu Shuangzhan for the police action in Tibet which to date has resulted in the deaths of over 80 Tibetans (The Age 17/3) – “I can honestly tell you that none of the means we have adopted there have exceeded the constitutional rights of the armed forces or international law”. “The aim of the measures that China is taking is to pressure stability”. “The shooting and burning, there is no country that would permit this”.

The justifications have a familiar ring about them; they are exactly the same words that are used by the Israelis to justify their violence in the Palestinian territories. If you look closely at the words, they are the same justifications that were used by the Howard government and the Victorian Police force to justify their response to the G20 protests in Melbourne on the 17th, 18th and 19th November 2006. They are the same sentiments that have been used to justify the 2.5 year prison sentence handed out to a political refugee from Turkey – Akin Sari – who has made Australia his home for his participation in the G20 protests.

The State can always justify the use of violence, because they exercise a monopoly on the use of violence. The words used by the Chinese government in Tibet to justify their crackdown, are the same empty words that are used to justify the actions of the State whenever its authority is challenged by those sections of the community that are oppressed by the State.

Last week’s Iranian election was nothing more than an exercise in futility. The clerical mafia continues to stymie attempts at reform by restricting who can and cannot stand for election. In a repeat of the Russian Parliamentary elections, who could and could not stand for election, was decided by unaccountable outside forces. The Council of Guardians exercises ultimate authority in Iran. Only 100 of 290 electorates fielded reformist candidates. 800 of the 909 reformist candidates that attempted to stand for election were barred by the Council of Guardians ensuring religious conservatives continue to dominate political and cultural life in Iran.

Over 2/3 of the population are under 30 and have only experienced life under a religious theocracy that attempts to regulate the most intimate aspects of their lives. Yearning for more personal freedom, Iran’s youth pose the most serious threat the government has faced since the 1979 revolution Mr. Ahmadinejad. The current President has presided over what can only be described as an economic disaster. Since he was elected in 2005, rents have soared in the capital Tehran, inflation has reached record levels and unemployment is on the rise.

Iran’s poor - the traditional supporters of the government - are tired of waiting for the government to fulfil the promises of the 1979 revolution. Faced with increasing pressure from disenchanted and desperate Iranians, the conservative hard liners that dominate the country have split into two factions. The United Front continues to support the President while the Broad Coalition – a coalition of conservatives - oppose his government and his re election as President. Faced with increasing hostility at home, the President needs the US in Iraq as much as the Shia dominated Iraqi government needs them. While Iranians believe the threat of invasion by the US is on the horizon, the conservatives, the US sabre rattling gives the conservative Mullahs – the credibility they need to thwart reformers.

Real power in Iran continues to lay in the hands of the Council of Guardians an unaccountable self-appointed Mullah led governing council which vetos any parliamentary legislation that loosens the shackles in Iran. Iranians, left to themselves, will ultimately challenge the stranglehold the religious conservatives exercise in the country if they don’t believe they are under threat from a US led invasion. The US presence in Iraq is the single most important obstacle to Iranians overthrowing the Mullah dominated government - a government that has long passed its use by date.

I don’t expect there will be many candles blown out around the country on Wednesday 19th of March to mark the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Just in case you have forgotten the 19th of March marks the 5the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by the US led ‘Coalition of the willing’. Five years later, despite every reason that was put forward for the invasion being proven to be a lie, the ‘coalition of the willing’ is still going about the task of ‘pacifying’ the region.

Things have become so bad in Iraq, people talk about ‘the good old day’ under the Baath Party dictatorship. Iraq, around twice the size of Victoria, has been a particularly hard nut for the inaptly named ‘Coalition of the willing’ to crack. Since the invasion, over 150,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed as a direct consequence of the war; hundreds of thousands have died as a result of disease and the lack of medical facilities to treat preventable illnesses. One in four Iraqis are totally dependant on food rations. Over 25 million Iraqis have fled the country as refugees; hundreds of thousands have been internally displaced from their homes as a direct consequence of the invasion. Over 4,000 foreign troops, mostly US armed service personnel have died in Iraq as a direct result of the conflict. Despite the US pouring over a trillion dollars into Iraq, electricity supply to the cities is sporadic and unreliable, over 75% of children are not attending school in Bagdad and the state of the art medical facilities that existed before the invasion have all but disappeared.

The most galling and least discussed aspect of the invasion is the privatisation of Iraq’s wealth by US owned corporations, confirming Iraqis suspicions the invasion had little to do with the removal of the dictator Saddam Hussein and everything to do with the plunder of the country’s oil wealth to secure US oil supplies.

One of the few secular societies in the Middle East is now terrorised by religious bigots who use private militias to extend their violent rule. The excesses of the Saddam Hussein regime pale into insignificance when compared to what is happening in Iraq today. The invasion has allowed Islamic militants to gain a toehold in the region, it has put at risk the survival of minorities that have lived in Iraq for thousands of years and most importantly of all it has pitted neighbour against neighbour along religious and ethnic lines.

On almost every available indicator, the invasion has been a disaster for both the people of Iraq as well as the invaders. The only people who have benefited as a consequence of the invasion are the US based transnational corporations that have profited from the privatisation of the country’s wealth and the religious bigots who have successfully filled the political vacuum that was created by the invasion of Iraq, by the US led ‘Coalition of the willing’ or should we call them the ‘Coalition of the ignorant and stupid’.

In any debate about the definition of anarchism, it is important to go back to the first principles to find a suitable definition of anarchism. Anarchists have always wanted to create a society without rulers. How this occurs is a debate that will be resolved in the day to day struggle to create a society without rulers. At the Anarchist Media Institute, we think that in order to create a society without rulers, you need to create structures and institutions that allow everybody who is involved in a decision to be involved in the decision making process. We also think that in order to create a society without rulers, wealth should be held in the hands of the community not the state or the private sector.

Whether we are right or wrong is obviously a matter for debate that will eventually be resolved in the ongoing struggle to create a society without rulers. Although we may have major differences with other people who define themselves as anarchists, we accept them as members of the movement as long as they want to create a society without rulers. How different people and groups go about this task is linked to the cultural, political and social milieu they find themselves in. Tactics that may be appropriate in a dictatorship may be totally inappropriate in a parliamentary democracy. A one tactic fits all approach will alienate anarchists from the very people they are tyring to influence.

Tactics and strategies change as conditions change, the principle that we want to create a society without rulers does not change. Different groups and movements will go about it in different ways, some will wither on the vine and die, others will survive and prosper – which groups survive or perish is to a large degree dependant on their ability to use tactics and strategies that are appropriate to the situation they find themselves in.

Never join a group because you feel pressured to do so or feel guilty about not joining. Time is one of the most precious assets we have. Think about why you are joining a group? What you hope to achieve? Work out how much time you are able to give? Small groups tend to put pressure on individuals; don’t take on more work if you don’t have the time to do it justice. Think about why you are joining a group. Is it issue orientated or has it more general aims? If it is issue orientated, what are the group’s arms? How is it structured? How are decisions made? Are you that interested in the issue or would your time be better spent in a group with more general aims?

When you join a group, look at how the group functions. Are the same people doing all the work or is work shared around? Take your time before you make a commitment especially if you don’t feel comfortable at meetings and gatherings. All small groups have both an official structure and an unofficial one. Take time to work out where power lies in the group. Be careful when you join a small group, especially an issue orientated one. Some groups are more interested in recruiting members to join a political organisation than the issue they were formed to tackle. Many small groups are infiltrated and captured by political parties who use them to recruit people to join their organisation. Is the group part of a wider network? If it is, is it a decentralised or a centralised organisation? Are decisions made by a central committee? What autonomy do local groups enjoy? How easy or hard is it to join the group? What type of activities is it involved in? Does the organisation review its activities? What type of tactics are used to influence people? Are you comfortable with these tactics?

If you ask these questions before you join a small group, you can save yourself a lot of time, effort and energy if you find the group is not for you. You may find it difficult leaving a small group, although you no longer believe in the reasons you joined because you may have made friends within the group. Leaving the group may have more consequences than you bargained for.

Pick and Choose. There are many groups you can join, make sure it is for you before you commit yourself.

The defeat of the conscription referendum in 1916 caused a seismic shift in Australian politics. The Prime Minister Billy Hughes and the Premier of NSW were expelled from the Labor Party because they continued to advocate conscription. Hughes expecting a no confidence vote in his leadership walked out of a caucus meeting with 23 of the 65 members present. The breakaway group formed the National Labor Party. This new party formed temporary administration with the conservative Nationalist opposition. Two months later in January 1917, the Liberals were admitted to the government. The I.W.W. 12 went on trial for conspiracy to commit arson and sedition on the 4th of December 1916 – all 12 were found guilty and were sentenced to 5 to 15 years hard labour.

A Workers Defence and Release Committee was set up to campaign to get the men out of prison. W. A. Holman the former Labor Premier and ex-socialist who was expelled from the Labor Party for continuing to advocate conscription, won the NSW election held early in 1917 as a member of the newly former Nationalist Party. The Nationalists won on the back of the fallout of the I.W.W. conspiracy trials in Sydney. NSW workers, feeling the brunt of the war effort at home, went on a general strike in early August 1917 paralysing the State. The strike was defeated when non union workers were brought in to do the unionists work. Billy Hughes, buoyed by Holman’s election victory in NSW, concerned about a hostile Senate’s ability to block the extension of the term for his government, used the public consternation caused by the NSW general strike and the jailing of the I.W.W. as an excuse to call an early election which his new party – the Nationalists – won handsomely. Many believed the Labor Party had blown its brains out and was a spent political force. In government with a healthy majority, the Hughes led Nationalist government pulled out all stops to rush the I.W.W. The I.W.W. was declared illegal, its publications banned, its assets seized and its members were sentenced to 6 months hard labour for belonging to a banned organisation. Monty Miller the grand old man of labour politics – a Eureka veteran and an I.W.W. member, who had been convicted of seditions conspiracy in 1916 in W.A. for his anti war activities, was sentenced at the age of 86 to 6 months hard labour. Both men and women were sentenced to the maximum term for membership of the I.W.W. which was now an illegal organisation.

Billy Hughes, buoyed by his success at crushing the I.W.W., announced on the day of the Bolshevik revolution the 17th of November 1917 that a second conscription referendum would be held in December 1917. Hughes faced open resistance from the Ryan led Queensland Labor government. While on a whistle stop tour in Warwick Queensland, an egg was thrown at the PM. Senior Sergent Kenny refused to arrest the man who had thrown the egg, telling the PM he was an officer of the Queensland government and only responsible to the Queensland government. Hughes contacted the Queensland Premier who refused to take any further action. Hughes furious at the rebuff, returned to Federal Parliament and passed legislation that created the Commonwealth Police - the forerunner of the Federal Police. Its time, considering the Federal Police’s keystone cop attitude to current security issues, adopted a Federal Police office climbing out of a broken egg as their official emblem

Hughes promised Australians that if the second conscription referendum failed, he would resign. The NO majority was 72,476 in the first conscription referendum in 1916; the NO majority had increased to 166,588 at the second referendum in 1917. Although Hughes resigned, he convinced the Governor General to recommission him to form a government. The same Ministry took office again after his farcical resignation.

NEXT WEEK: ‘‘The War Draws To A Close, The I.W.W. Release Committee Struggles On’

Many of the vocal tracks explore hauntingly personal universal themes. These tracks are accompanied by music that squeezes the last drop of blood from The Bard’s tattered soul. Other more politically motivated tracks thrust deeply into the belly of the beast. Steven Whitehead is more vocally and emotionally comfortable with songs like ‘If Only’ (my personal favourite) and ‘Change my Mind’ than the more overtly political lyrics of ‘Superficial Heroes’. The instrumental tracks ‘New Year’s Eve’ and ‘Come Later On’ evoke a gut wrenching visceral response from the listener.

The CD is accompanied by a vibrant colourful booklet filled with The Bard’s own art work, which for those listeners who love to see the vocals on paper, becomes an indispensable part of the total experience of this CD.

I listened to the CD in the car returning to ‘If Only’, ‘Gotta Get Out and Change my Mind’ over and over again. In an era when music is compartmentalised, sanitised and sold to the highest bidder ‘In a Golden Dawn’ breaks many of the composition, vocal and production taboos that emotionally and intellectually hobble individual creativity.

Technological innovations have made it possible for hard working courageous performers like The Bard to drive the money changers from the creative process and allow the listener to enjoy the experience free from outside interference. The good news is that although costs have been kept to a minimum to allow everybody access to ‘In a Golden Dawn’ the quality of Steven WHITEHEAD’S materiel has not suffered. Hard working creators like The Bard need to cover their costs and have a little leftover for rent, food and the next CD.

If you want your own copy of the CD or want to find out where you can hear Steven WHITEHEAD a 20 year overnight sensation, contact Gabrielle Whitehead – The Bard’s promoter, press secretary and wife at EQUANIMITY Records on 0432 528 634 www.thebard.com.au or write to The Bard – PO Box 67, Ballan 3342 VIC Australia – for a copy of a very, very reasonably priced CD. AU$12 includes the CD and packaging anywhere in Australia. AU$15 includes the CD and packaging anywhere on planet earth. You couldn’t ask for a better offer.

‘Up the Tigers’, ‘Come on the Kangas’ - must be football season. Sometimes I wonder what an overseas, even an interstate tourist, thinks they have got themselves into when they read the newspaper headlines in Melbourne. ‘Bomber kill Tigers’, ‘’Tiger maul Swans’, ‘Eagles stone the Crows’ and one of my favourite ‘Demons smash Saints’. Football season is a sub editor’s equivalent of paradise. They can put the most obtuse headlines in print and everybody in Victoria knows what their talking about.

Imagine some poor Japanese tourist getting off at Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne and coming across the headline. ‘Demons smash Saints’. They would be a bit wary of continuing their journey, just in case the Demons get them too. Football season highlights some of the hidden assumptions that exist in this country - some innocent others not so innocent. All Aboriginal men are child molesters, Aboriginals neglect their children, they’re work shy and dirty - are some of the unwritten assumptions that dominate the thinking of many non indigenous Australians. When you think about it, these unwritten assumptions are mainly a by-product of an upbringing and a media that almost everyday both continuously and unconsciously, makes the same public accusations about all indigenous Australians.

When a non indigenous group of paedophiles or wife beaters, or thieves, or mass murderers are brought to public attention in the media, people don’t automatically think that all non indigenous Australians are paedophiles, wife beaters and murderers. Hidden and unwritten assumptions are usually directed at minorities, not mainstream Australians. Jews and Arabs continue to be the butt of jokes and lies among Australians because many Orthodox Jews, like blacks, are Moslem women wearing the hajib, are there for all to see.

Assumptions which lump everybody from a particular race, religion, sexual orientation together do more damage than we can imagine. They ruin the lives of the people these assumptions are made about and they poison the minds of the community as a whole. Underlying community assumptions about the football are relatively harmless, hidden community assumptions about minorities living in our community is the stuff that leads to ethnic cleansing.

One of the Howard Government’s more heinous pieces of legislation is currently under the pump. In 2005 with the support of the Beazly led opposition, the Howard Government introduced legislation that was intended to punish the unemployed if they didn’t jump through an increasingly complex set of hoops to access unemployment benefits. While the country ‘rejoices’ at the election of a Rudd led Labor Government, the unemployed continue to be penalised for not following an increasingly complex set of rules that are designed to punish job seekers who don’t cross their t’s and dot their i’s. During the past seven months, 25,359 unemployed have had their payment suspended for 8 weeks for not following these odious rules.

The unemployed were demonised by the Howard Government and have been forgotten by the Rudd Government. The federal minister for employment participation alarmed at the thought of over 25,000 of Australia’s most vulnerable citizens being pauparised has called for yet another investigation into the reasons that job seekers are penalised and left with no income for eight weeks.

The Minister was quick to respond ‘reassuring Australians’ this review in no way seeks to examine the mutual obligation philosophy that is used to justify the marginalisation of some of the most vulnerable members of the community. Instead of introducing legislation to suspend what can only be described as selective and punitive, the government continues to encourage Centrelink to refer people whose benefits have been suspended to charities for food and accommodation.

Centrelink staff faced with legislation that does not allow them to make allowances for people who have inadvertently broken the rules or who don’t have the psychological or intellectual capacity to jump through the government’s imposed hoops find themselves in the invidious position of penalising people they know will be evicted and have trouble accessing food and health care. This legislation needs to be overturned today – we don’t need another inquiry to find out what happens when people with no resources are forced to live on nothing for eight weeks.

Instead of continuing to blame the Howard Government for what can only be described as punitive legislation that makes no allowances for individual variability, the Rudd led Labor Government should introduce legislation at the next sitting of federal parliament to overturn these odious laws. Whether they do so or not is dependent on Australians demanding the poor and disadvantage are not punished for being unemployed.

Thank you for the many e-mails and phone calls coming in, especially those looking to find out how everything is going. There are too many to respond to individually so instead I am working hard with Kristin to try and get the web site up and running so that everybody can visit the site and see the updates. I can tell you that I am averaging 70km's per day and that at the end of each day (so far) I am so tired I feel like doing little else! (apart from eating that is!)

This leg of the tour has been pretty tough simply because of the mountain ranges. In the last week I have had a 340m altitude ascent in just over 3..5km distance, a 260m ascent over 6 km's and a 361m ascent over 9km's and it hasn't ended yet. There is another 200km's of similar terrain from Eden through to Tathra and Uladulla. Can't wait! Temperatures during the 260m ascent peaked at 37 degrees and this combined with heavy smoke from CFA 'burning off' from the night before made the ride incredibly difficult. As for the endurance, (Paul you were definitely right!) breaking through into the mental toughness is the key, but that barrier is tough to get through! 280km's over four days is my maximum to date but that will increase no doubt when I get on flatter ground. On the positive side, there is some simply stunning scenery through here that you just don't get to see the same way when you are driving a car, it is stunningly beautiful!

I have lots of pictures to put up on the site along with commentary. People are donating money as I go and others have incrediblr stories of their own, so hopefully you'll get to read all about it shortly. It doesn't look like the Weekly Times article went in but we are checking to see what happened, will let you know when we find out. Kristin's performance on the ABC 774 Derek Guille show went extremely well with people as far away as Mallacoota contacting her by e-mail to find out if she would be performing there. Well we are in Mallacoota now and she did perform to a very large audience last night, not surprisingly people are blown away by her music and have been snapping up CD's at a ferocious rate!. Tonight will be my turn at Cafe 54 (the restaurant that hosts the musical strum club jam session) to have a brief talk about 'For Blokes Sake'. Anyway gotta go so that's all for now.

Cheers - Andrew & Kristin

FREEDOM Vol.49 No.4, MARCH 2008, Anarchist Fortnightly, 84b Whitechapel High St, London E17QX, ENGLAND
Email : FreedomCopy@aol.com

TIERRA Y LIBERTAD No.235 MARCH 08, Periodico Anarquista, A Gonzalez, Apartado 7056 de Madrid, 28080 Madrid SPAIN.
Email : tierraylibertad@nodo50.org

OPERAI CONTRO Vol 24 No127 JAN 08, Giornale per la Critica, La Lotta, Via Folck, 44-20099, Seato S. Giovanni (MI), ITALY
Web : www.asloperaicontro.org

• Sending 50cent stamps as we still have a significant number of people who receive the AAWR by snail mail.

• You can receive the AAWR by email – this decreases our postage costs by $25 per year per person who receives the AAWR by Email.

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will be outside the

VICTORIAN ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE

– 121 EXHIBITION STREET, MELBOURNE

11.30am - WEDNESDAY 26th March 2008

Come & join us & demand a Royal Commission into the links between corrupt business, police & political Interests & organised crime in Victoria – All welcome

Write to:

AKIN SARI, c/- Port Phillip Prison,
P.O. BOX 376, Laverton 3080,
Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA

Akin Sari a 29 year old Turkish political refugee who was granted political asylum in Australia has been sentenced to 2 years & 4 months imprisonment for offences related to his involvement in the G20 protests in Melbourne in November 2006. Akin has already spent 7 months in prison awaiting trial & sentencing. He has been set a minimum 14 months sentence. Akin will have to serve the maximum sentence of 2 years & 4 months if he fails to obtain parole in October 2008. Keep his spirits up, write to him today!!

“We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other & fight to defend our rights & liberties”

NOMINATION CLOSE – 31st OCTOBER 2008

Send in one nomination or as many as you like. Send us the following information:

• The name of the person nominated
  
  
• A few sentences outlining why they should receive the award
  
  
• A contact address for the nominee (We need to contact them if they wish to receive the award)
  
  
• The person you nominate can be a public figure or somebody only known to a few people.

SEND YOUR NOMINATIONS ASAP TO

EUREKA AUSTRALIA DAY MEDAL
P.O. BOX 20
PARKVILLE 3052, VIC
AUSTRALIA

or email your nomination to anarchistage@yahoo.com

“SEDITION – Conduct or speech inciting to rebellion”

SIGN THE SEDITION CHARTER ONLINE - www.seditioncharter.org

If you’re computer literate and many of us are not, write to us for a copy of the Sedition Charter, at :

P.O. BOX 5035,
ALPHINGTON 3078,
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Terrible things happen when good people do nothing. Openly defy this government’s attempts to muzzle and intimidate opposition to their neo conservative authoritarian agenda – SIGN the ‘Sedition Charter’ TODAY!

THE POWER OF RECALL – Electors having the constitutional right to recall parliamentary representatives in between elections

CITIZENS INITIATED REFERENDUMS – The people having the power to initiate constitutional change through referendums

DIRECT DEMOCRACY – Electing delegates with limited mandates, to co-ordinate decisions that have been made by the people, not electing representatives to make decisions for us.

(We Currently Have 122 Paid Up Members)

DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOT PARLIAMENTARY RULE - www.rulebythepeople.org

Defiant Christians Against All Terrorism members will be conducting another citizens inspection of the top secret joint US / Australian military complex at Pine Gap on ANZAC Day – 25th of April 2008.

An anarchist analysis of local, national & international events. Tune into your local community radio station to listen to the Anarchist World This Week. If they don’t broadcast it, ask them why not! If they’re one of the 150 community radio stations around Australia that are affiliated to the National Community Radio Satellite, they are able to broadcast the Anarchist World This Week.

2BAY, 2BBB, 2BLU, 2DRY, 2HOT, 2OCB, 2WOW, 2XX, 3CH, 3CR, 36CR, 3MGB, 3REG, 4NAG, 4RRR, 5BBB, 5RRR, 6YCR

MULTI-COLOURED GLOSSY A3 POSTER AVAILABLE FOR 20 50c STAMPS.
(Price includes packaging, poster in secure cylinder and postage anywhere in Australia)

The Anarchist Savants Monthly
P.O. Box 43
Clunes 3370, VIC, AUSTRALIA.

Or email Andrew directly on andrewpstretton@yahoo.com.au for further info.

‘LIFE WASN’T MEANT TO BE EASY’

Go to www.3CR.org.au to access the podcast.

The govt of Canada has listed the US as a place where prisoners were at risk of torture, only to remove them after pressure. The training manual for Canadian diplomats lists U.S. 'interrogation techniques' such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation & blindfolding prisoners. The list also incl Israel. However Foreign Min Maxime Bernier said the manual "contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed the manual be reviewed & rewritten." (Reuters)

Guantanamo Bay may be used as a location to execute prisoners. Conducting executions of convicted terrorists on US soil would allow the detainee's lawyers to use the US court system to appeal against their convictions. However an execution chamber at Guantanamo Bay would be largely out of the reach of US courts. Bruce Lloyd, spokesman for the Guantanamo Naval Station, said a Muslim section of the cemetery at Guantanamo has been dedicated by an Islamic cultural adviser. ( phillyburbs.com [US])

QUOTE OF THE MOMENT: "I think it’s very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot...the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people." - Mother Teresa.